


Falling

by aparticularbandit



Category: Hannibal (TV), Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: F/F, margot's tag can be added when she shows up in the fic - so like chapter three? maybe?, post s5 canon compliant fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2020-10-13 03:22:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20575631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aparticularbandit/pseuds/aparticularbandit
Summary: "The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, hecomplains of my gab and my loitering."I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world."The last scud of day holds back for me,It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any onthe shadow'd wilds,It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk."I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runawaysun,I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags."I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass Ilove,If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles."You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,And filter and fibre your blood."Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,Missing me one place search another,I stop somewhere waiting for you."-Walt Whitman, Song of Myself





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This book does assume that Alana Bloom was Luisa's therapist during her first time in a mental institute (during her residency, when she hallucinated Carla) and may make references to occurrences/events in If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now, even though that fic is not canon-compliant. You do not need to have read that fic to enjoy this one.
> 
> Until further notice, assume that Rose is dead. That's what I'm doing as I write this.
> 
> This first chapter contains excerpts from Walt Whitman's Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking. I don't take credit for those.

It was three weeks after her brother’s wedding when Luisa finally broke.

Rafael and Jane had taken a full month for their honeymoon, and with Jane’s family already in various states of upheaval over Rogelio’s upcoming move as well as Petra’s reunion with _her_ Jane, Luisa was the best – the _easiest_ – choice for watching Mateo while they were gone, provided that one or more of the others checked in on them every now and again. And despite the years of no trust, all of that animosity seemed to fade away now that she’d—

_She wasn’t thinking about that._

In fact, with the wedding so soon after…_it_, Luisa could distract herself by focusing on potential ways to help and trying to get the lost information on Rafael’s biological parents (because what better wedding present could there be? It was certainly better than the gravy boat someone had gotten him when he married Petra (and there was no way she was paying for the open bar this time)). After that, with all the time she spent taking care of her nephew for the very first time ever, there hadn’t really been much time to sit and think. She was busy. It was a _good_ kind of busy, though, like being at Longbourne had been. Every time something had finally started to click and it started to hit, to sink in, there was something else to do, or Mateo was there, and those distractions were so much better than the desire to drink would have been. And when she did, of course, cry all the way through _Up_ (because, honestly, _fuck Pixar_), Mateo just kissed her cheek and told her it was okay because his mommy always cried through that movie, too.

But it couldn’t last forever.

Raf and Jane’s first stop after they returned from their honeymoon was Luisa’s apartment so they could pick up Mateo, and although they were happy to see her, they were exhausted – not just from the past month, but also from encroaching jet lag. No, they couldn’t possibly stay and chat. Besides, Raf had to get back to work the very next morning, and Jane _really_ needed to talk to her agent. But it was great to see her again! And they would set up another time to meet soon! Definitely!

Then, they were gone, and Luisa was alone.

For the first few hours, Luisa was okay. _Better_ than okay. She was still busy! Cleaning up after having Mateo around, putting the house back in order, finding some of the things he’d left behind – and these she put in one corner for later. Either he’d want something and Jane or Raf would come to see if she had it or, in a few days, maybe, when everything had quieted down, she’d take everything by _their_ place. She probably hadn’t even found everything he’d left. She’d probably find more as she carried on with her life.

_Probably._

Then, for what felt like the first time in months and might very well have been, Luisa sat on her couch, exhaled a breath she felt like she’d been holding for just as long, and relaxed.

_Tried_ to relax.

In reality, she was calm for only a matter of a few seconds before she was up again, searching for something else to distract her mind. Anything. She was at her fridge before she knew what she was doing, the stainless steel pulled open and her eyes peering inside for the liquid numb that she hadn’t kept in her place since the last time Rose had—

Oh.

_Oh._

No, she wasn’t thinking about that, she wasn’t—

_Nngh._

It came all at once, the stopper to her throat so big that she couldn’t breathe around it, like having a charlie horse in her neck, like fire boiling her alive from the inside, like _drowning_—

Luisa felt like a Jenga tower when the game was close to being finished, when so many wooden blocks had been stolen and the tower itself was so rickety that it could fall over at any minute, and _she_ had been the last piece keeping her steady, and now that someone was trying to place the weight of _it_ on top of her, _she swayed_—

Her phone rang.

She blinked a couple of times.

The tower straightened.

Her phone continued to ring, a strong buzzing sound from where it rested in the living room accompanied by what most people would now acknowledge as the CSI theme song but which she had known long before that, a song almost as old as she herself was. Luisa lay still, crumpled on the kitchen floor, the tips of her fingers picking into the edge of the floral floor tiles (not roses, she had refused to let there be roses, she had—), but as the phone continued to ring, as she forced herself to focus on the sound instead of the realization that she’d been trying to ignore anyway, she found herself slowly becoming able to breathe again.

That was enough to get her up and moving.

Luisa made her way into the living room. Her hand clasped the phone. Her eyes scanned the number.

Unlisted.

She only knew one person who would use an unlisted number.

She answered it immediately.

There was silence on the other end. Nothing. Not even the sound of someone breathing, and Luisa thought that she must have answered it on that final ring when the other party has already hung up, except that the longer she hung on, hoping, the more certain she was that she was wrong – there was none of that annoying _beeping_ of a disconnected call. Besides, there was something else in the background, something muffled, like maybe the other person had her hand over the voice receiver.

Finally, _finally_, Luisa, unable to wait any longer, croaked out a single word: “_Rose?_”

There was a shuffling on the other end of the phone followed by another silence – much more complete this time, as though whoever was on the other end was moving from one room to another and had placed her on a silent hold – and then, all of a sudden, the sound was back, much more sharper this time. “No, no, this is Alana. Alana Bloom?”

Her heart dropped the same way the stones she once tried to skip across Longbourne Lake hadn’t.

“Dr. Bloom.” Luisa ran a shaking hand through her hair, pushing it back behind one ear, then wiped one thumb along the tears she could feel beginning to pool in her eyes. She didn’t want them to fall. She would have to _think_ if they fell. “Yeah, yeah, _hi_, it’s been, wow, it’s been a while. Years, right? I heard you were retired. How’s that going for you? Is it good? Retirement’s not going so well for me.”

If it could even be _called_ retirement given that she’d had no real choice in the matter.

“That’s actually why I was calling.”

“Because you’re retired?” Luisa’s brow furrowed as she tried to work it out, hazel eyes flicking back and forth as she tried to consider everything she knew about her old therapist, as well as certain rules about doctors and their patients. Then she gasped. “This isn’t a booty call, is it? Because, honestly, I’m flattered, but unless you’re in Miami, that’s a _really_ long way to go for a booty call.”

She could hear laughter on the other end, and her lips pulled into a frown. “And now you’re laughing at me. Good, fine, I get it. I’m being delusional. No way my _drop dead gorgeous_ ex-therapist who is now retired is call me because I’m _equally_ gorgeous and she can’t keep her hands off of me now that she doesn’t have any legal reason not to.”

At least now Luisa could grin at her own joke instead of feeling like she was the brunt of one she didn’t understand. Either way, it was still better than thinking about that thing that she was specifically _not_ thinking about (but was somehow still thinking about _not thinking about it_).

“I think my girlfriend would be _very upset_ if I were going to anyone else for sex, even if it _is_ someone as beautiful as you are, Luisa.”

She can hear the words spoken with the tenseness in Alana’s throat that she knew meant that the other woman was trying to keep from laughing again. Luisa could even imagine the little doctor on the other end – and while _little_ was subjective because Luisa knew that for…. Well, _she_ was considered little, compared to _some people_, but Alana was little compared to _her_, which made her _actually_ little – and she could imagine her eyes, too, so cold and piercing for a woman who was primarily warm, eyes that twinkled with merriment.

_She could see other blue eyes that weren’t nearly as cold and dark lips curved up in a grin right before bending down to kiss her and she could feel the curve of red hair brush against her cheek and—_

“Luisa?” Alana’s voice cut through the image, bringing her back to reality. “You still there?”

“Mm?” Luisa’s lips pressed together so tight that she could feel her teeth digging into her flesh. She blinked a couple of times. Still in her living room. Television right there. An old one, boxy, instead of the newer, thinner ones, even though she had one of those, too. She just liked the antique aesthetic of it. That, and she thought it could be a nice project in the future – to gut it and turn it into a fish tank. She could have some that glowed, maybe, if she brought some fish back from Longbourne, if she decided to stay here.

Of course she was staying here. They were finally letting her be part of the family. She was fine. _Yeah. Fine._

Other than needing a job, now that she’d gotten rid of the family money, but that could be arranged.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m still here.” Luisa began to trace a circle on the wooden side table where her phone had been laying only a few moments before. The couch was right there, but she didn’t trust herself to sit down again just yet. Standing was easier. “Sorry, I interrupted. What did you want? Something to do with being retired?”

“I was hoping I could convince you to come out of it for a little while.”

“Oh.” Luisa swallowed, nodding once, which was absolutely useless because Alana couldn’t _see_ her. “I didn’t have a choice in the matter,” she said, laughing, and brushed her hair back behind one ear again. “It’s not about _convincing_. I lost my license. I’m not supposed to be helping anyone like that anymore.” This was an easier conversation topic, probably because she’d had to have it so many times, and that was what led her to finally sitting on the couch, one leg crossed over the other, the phone cradled against her ear like she’d cradled others when she was in college and phones were still stuck to walls by cords. Longbourne still had a phone like that, actually. She’d liked it. But what was the point in having a home phone when she wasn’t really _home_?

_ <strike>Where was home?</strike> _ <strike></strike>

“What if I told you that didn’t matter?”

_That_ was a more confusing conversation to have, and Luisa was suddenly glad she was sitting because if she wasn’t, she might have just dropped again. “What now?”

“My girlfriend is a little unconventional in her methods, Dr. Alver.”

“I’m not a doctor anymore.”

“You still have your doctorate. As far as I’m concerned, you’re still a doctor.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“No, it isn’t.” There was a pause on the other end of the phone before Alana continued, “She would rather it be someone like you than someone still in the medical field.” There was a little laugh, a bubble of a sound. “If I hadn’t stopped her, I think she would have tried to do it herself, but I told her if she wanted me to carry her son, we were going to be better about this.”

“You’re pregnant?” Luisa asked, eyes widening at the mention of a son. “Is that what you want me for, just to watch you and make sure that everything is going correctly?” Her lips pressed together again, and she shook her head. “But you must already have someone for that, otherwise you wouldn’t even know you had a son. Why can’t you just keep seeing them?”

“We don’t have _anyone_ yet, Luisa.” Alana sighed. “It’s complicated, and I would prefer not to explain all of this over the phone.” A pause, then, “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to explain it at all, but suffice to say that my girlfriend and I plan to keep trying until we have a son.”

“And if you don’t have one?”

“We will.”

Alana’s certainty sat in the pit of Luisa’s stomach like a rock because she knew that wasn’t how pregnancy worked. No one could be absolutely certain that they would end up with a specific, preferred gender eventually; there were families she’d seen who had seven girls already while the mother was pregnant with the eighth. It wasn’t as easy as Alana sound like she presumed it to be. But it wasn’t in her anymore to try and fight that sort of thing. She knew well enough what it was like to try and argue with someone who thought they knew better.

_“You are not always the smartest person in the room, Rose, and one of these days it’s going to get you killed!”_

_Her hair was fire and her skin was ash and her eyes were the ocean but they didn’t hold enough water to save her._

“From what I hear,” Alana began, breaking through Luisa’s thoughts again, and there was a clicking sound in the background like sharp nails on marble, “you might need to see me as well.”

Luisa was having trouble breathing again.

“What did you hear?”

The tower lurched dangerously – someone stepped forward as though to remove another piece. They were looking for the right one. _Searching, searching—_

“You’re not a murderer, Luisa.”

“You don’t know what I am.”

_“I know exactly what you are.”_

By the time she was aware enough of her surroundings again, Luisa was curled up in a little ball against one arm of the couch, arms wrapped around her knees, head pressed against the phone pressed against the back of the couch. She took a deep breath and forced it through her lungs. Outside, there was a bird chirping. No, no, _two_ birds. The chirps were different. A conversation. A song. They’d be gone soon. Miami was nice in the winter, but birds would need somewhere safer during the rest of hurricane season. Here wasn’t safe.

_Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,  
Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle—_

“Why don’t you come up and visit us?” Alana asked, her soft voice cutting through the fog in Luisa’s mind once more. “You don’t have to make a decision one way or the other. You can see where we would set you up. We can explain the entire situation to you. And I can see you again. It’s been a really long time.”

“I didn’t know you wanted to see me.” As far as Luisa was concerned, _no one_ wanted to see her. No one except—

“It’s probably a good thing you weren’t here. Things were a little complicated for a while.” Another huff of a laugh. “They still are, just _less_ so.”

Luisa slowly disentangled herself from herself, forced herself to relax, and lowered her head to look down at her fingers where they now drew circles on the plain fabric of her pale blue skirts. No more floral patterns. She’d hidden all of those away. “I know what that feels like.”

“I’m sure you do.”

If she were with Alana now, Luisa knew exactly what her little doctor would be doing. She’d be reaching across with one hand and carefully placing it on her knee or over her hand – some small act to provide her comfort. There was no pressure in Alana’s tone. There never was. Only a quiet attempt to help her.

Luisa took a deep breath. “You have a place for me?”

A pause, then, quietly, “Yes. If you’ll come.”

It didn’t matter that Alana couldn’t see or hear a nod. Luisa was nodding before she could get the words through her lips. “I’ll come.” Then, just as quickly, her eyes widening, “_To check things out._ I’m not promising that I’ll help or even that I _can_ help but if you want to see me, I can come visit, and you can lay out everything you want then, and I’ll…I’ll know. One way or the other. That’s fine, right? If we do that?”

“Of course.” Alana’s voice was still safe, calm. Comforting. “I wouldn’t have suggested it if it wasn’t.”

Luisa nodded, again, and it still didn’t matter that Alana couldn’t see her this time because it wasn’t a nod meant for her to see. “I’ll need your phone number,” Luisa said, remembering how the number had shown up on her phone. “I’ll need to be able to call you directly.”

“I can arrange for that, provided you don’t bring up the real reason you’re visiting.”

“Your phone is tapped, isn’t it?” Luisa asked, the reasoning coming sooner than she would have liked, but she knew it as soon as Alana explained. That was why the number was unlisted, too. This was a separate number. Luisa swallowed once. Well, she knew how to deal with that, didn’t she? “How do you know mine isn’t?”

“They don’t know about you yet.” A pause, then, “And I’ve called other people like you. They won’t track you.”

“It doesn’t matter. After years living with a crime lord, phone tapping isn’t particularly _complicated_ anymore.” Luisa hated the words as soon as she spoke them, knew the tightening in her chest as it grew, forced herself to speak past it in an attempt to distract her focus elsewhere. “It won’t be an issue.”

“I know it won’t.”

It didn’t take long for Alana to provide a number where Luisa could reach her. Truth be told, it probably took Luisa longer to find a spare piece of paper on which to write it. Eventually, she found an old tan leather notebook tucked away in the back of one of her drawers, flipped to a random unused page, and scratched it down in her illegible doctor’s scratch.

Well. _Mostly_ illegible. _She_ could read it. Didn’t really matter if anyone else could.

“When should we expect you?” Alana asked, then.

It gave Luisa some pause. On the one hand, she was afraid to stay here too long without anything to do, afraid of where her mind might go with nothing else to hold onto, but on the other hand—

Luisa had waited so long to be reconnected with her family, and a part of her still wanted nothing more than to stay here and be with them – with Rafael and Mateo and Jane, who no longer seemed to hate her now that she had—

_Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think, don’t—_

“Give me a few days?” Luisa asked, swallowing against the lump in her throat again, and her head lowered as her gaze focused on the journal. She shut it as she spoke, fingers tapping on the cover a few times. She’d seen it before, but she wasn’t sure exactly where. Journals weren’t really her thing. Maybe it had belonged to a previous occupant and been left behind? That would make sense; she hadn’t really been super attentive when it came to making sure everything was cleaned out of the furniture before she moved in – or _when_ she moved in. “I should be able to be there by the end of the week?”

It felt a little soon. It felt a little too quick, too. But if she was just checking everything out and visiting an old friend, then that wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t as though she’d _agreed_ to anything yet. And she still might not. She didn’t _have_ to agree to anything. There were no strings attached to visiting.

And…it would be _nice_ to get out of Miami again for a little while. It would.

It’d be easier to think about other things when she wasn’t living somewhere that could throw her past lived into her face at every turn.

_O past! O happy life! O songs of joy!_  
In the air, in the woods, over fields,  
Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved!  
But my mate no more, no more with me!  
We two together no more!

Luisa wasn’t really paying all that much attention as the phone call ended. There wasn’t anything more to say. Instead, she took the journal and crept into her bed, tracing the cover. It was a softer leather, like something she might buy – or might _have_, before she’d become vegetarian and decided that maybe leather wasn’t such a great idea after all.

_“Really?” Her nose scrunched up, wiggling back and forth a couple of times. “You’re going to give all of this up?”_

_There wasn’t anything in front of them to suggest such a huge spread, but she spread out her hand over the counter anyway. It meant even less where they were than in the Caymans or in Miami; breakfast wasn’t clams or calamari or caviar (which neither of them much liked anyway) or bacon (which both of them very much did) or even eggs, but instead it was soft, light, meatless. Crepes, pancakes, fruit (mostly strawberries and blueberries), and, of course, donuts lightly frosted with powdered sugar._

_“Well, I wouldn’t be giving any of _this_ up,” Luisa replied, lips creeping into a half smile as she picked up one of the strawberries and placed it gently between her lips. “Unless I wanted to try being vegan.”_

_She wrapped her hands around Luisa’s waist and drew close to her, resting her chin on Luisa’s shoulder. “Please don’t go vegan. My mother used to make these vegan donuts when I was little, and I remember them being some of the most disgusting things I’d ever tasted.”_

_“You don’t have to eat them.” Luisa turned just enough to press a strawberry stained kiss to her cheek and then held up a strawberry just beside her own shoulder. “Taste this. They’re really good today.”_

_She hummed as she bit the strawberry, as she licked the juice from her fingertips and then kissed each of them in turn. “You really think I’ll get the good donuts and leave you to the bad ones all on your own.”_

_“I’m not even eating the bad ones.” Luisa took her hands in her own, interlaced their fingers, and turned around to face her. “Vegetarian and vegan aren’t the same thing.”_

_“Don’t you mean vagit—”_

_Luisa kissed her then and pulled away with her brows raised. “We don’t make those puns.”_

_“No. _I_ make those puns. You don’t catch yourself in time.”_

_Luisa leaned closer so that their noses were just touching. “If you want to eat out again, you keep that pun to yourself.”_

_She pouted until Luisa moved close enough to kiss the pout away._

Luisa shuddered once.

_She remembered, even in jail, and she’d sent vegan powdered donuts instead of the real ones, and she still wasn’t sure how she’d even found any like that, but there they were, and they were real, and there were so many of them, and she’d been so alone—_

Not as alone as she was now.

Luisa sat down cross-legged on her bed and pulled her blankets up over her mostly bare legs before flipping the journal to the first page. No name. She wasn’t really surprised. Maybe she was the only one who had been so childish as to put her name in the front of all her journals, along with a phone number and an address, in case it was ever lost. Not that anyone who found them had ever called to let her know. Assuming they hadn’t just thrown them away or ripped out all of her carefully written notes (_hah!_) and just continued to use the notebook on their own. As though it even mattered. (It didn’t.)

So – nothing on the front page. She flipped to the next one.

Her heart didn’t catch in her throat when she saw the handwriting, and it didn’t skip a beat, and she counted that as some sort of progress. But she didn’t leave the journal open any longer either, instead shutting it closed at once and shoving it back into the front drawer of her bedside table. She’d pull it out if she needed to call Alana.

But not until then.


	2. Chapter 2

Most people might have taken weeks, or even months, to consider Alana’s proposition, but Luisa knew her decision by the end of the day. It didn’t matter that she’d just planned to visit – she knew deep within her aching bones that she wasn’t _just visiting_. Maybe it was that other people had someone else to discuss these matters with, maybe that was why it took them so long to decide.

But who would Luisa discuss this with? Her father had been dead for years, Rafael was busy with his new family, and Rose—

She wasn’t thinking about Rose.

There wasn’t much around her apartment to clean up. She’d moved into it already furnished under the impression that she would return to Longbourne and would leave it much the same – and with her constantly moving lifestyle over the past few years, what she had was never as important as who she was—

_There were still things she wanted that she left behind on Rose’s island – **her** island, now, if she wanted it – because she’d naively believed Rafael when he’d said his cancer had returned and so had just as naively believed they would return together, eventually – and it was Rose, Rose with her hair so frizzy from the humidity, Rose with her nimble fingers holding Luisa’s close, Rose with the forethought to pack things she knew would be important to the both of them without her knowledge—_

There wasn’t much to pack. That was the point. There were even fewer pictures; in the same way that she’d burned Rafael’s adoption papers, she’d—

_Ash and ash and ash and ash and she’d burned the tips of her fingers pulling the pictures out of the fireplace and most of them had still burned anyway—_

_Her hair was the same color as the fire that ate it—_

** _She didn’t scream—_ **

Her car door shut with a locking click as Luisa carried the cardboard box full of the toys Mateo had left behind to her brother’s front door. The rest of her things, few though they were, waited for her return. It would be easier to leave from here. If she waited, she knew—

No. She didn’t know. Before Jane, _maybe_ Rafael would have fought for her to stay, for her to change her mind, for he to think everything through, and <strike>before Rose</strike> no, even now, she knew deep in her heart that she would listen to him if he only so much as _asked_ for her to change her mind.

But he wouldn’t. <strike>Only with Rose.</strike>

No one answered when Luisa knocked on the front door of Jane and Rafael’s new little house, and they still didn’t answer when she rang the doorbell. She tried to poke her head in a few of the windowpanes and saw nothing but empty house. So she propped the box of toys between her hip and the door and pulled out her phone. No new phone calls either. No new text messages. Nothing.

“_Raf._”

Luisa called him instead, head tilted to one side as she tried to peek through the windows again. Not only did there appear to be no one there, the house was _dark_ inside. She tapped her fingers against the cardboard box as the phone rang and started in immediately as soon as her brother picked up.

“Hey, Raf, it’s your loving sister, who called ahead to let you know she was coming. Just wondering where you are?”

“Oh, hey, Lu, are you there?” There was an awkwardness to Rafael’s voice, a sheepishness that she didn’t expect. “We…honestly didn’t expect you to show up for another couple of hours.”

“_I called ahead._”

“You’re not the most reliable, sorry.”

Luisa could see her brother rubbing the back of his neck and giving her an awkward grin, even though he wasn’t really there. “Look, are you going to be back any time soon?” she asked.

“No. Jane’s editor said she needed to hammer out some stuff about the book tour, and Jane figured that meant I should go since we’ll be going with her. It was kind of last minute. We weren’t really thinking about your coming at all.”

“Right.”

_“He doesn’t care about you. I’m here.”_

“So, where’s your spare key?” Luisa shifted the box against her hip as her eyes began to wander around the porch. “I know you’ve got one. Or _you_ don’t have one, but Jane seems like the type.” She placed the cardboard box down on their swing – _of course, there was a porch swing_ – and began to pick up potted plants and the welcome mat, checking beneath each of them, as she could hear Rafael whispering with Jane.

“Lu, we don’t have one of those.”

“Sure, you do,” Luisa said, still crawling about on the porch with an exasperated sigh. “Don’t lie to me. Or is this hide and seek? I just have to find it?” By then, though, she was already tired, and she pulled a couple of hair pins from her purse. Well. _More_ than a couple of hair pins.

“We _really_ don’t have one. Jane got spooked when Rose broke into our last place.”

“Which means she still has one. She just hid it better and doesn’t want me to know where it is.” Her fingers twiddled with her things – she’d watched her _now dead ex-friend_ break into Raf’s old apartment and she’d memorized the actions. She’d always been good at breaking into things, a skill that had really helped when it came to getting into their father’s liquor cabinet when she was younger (among other things). This was a little different, but she was sure she could make it in.

“Jane says she doesn’t have one.”

“And what do you do when you get locked out?” Luisa asked as she began to mess with the doorknob.

“We call each other.”

“And if one of you is busy?”

“We call a locksmith.”

“That sounds like a waste of money.” There was a little click from the door, and with a twist of the handle, it sprang open. Luisa grinned. “Looks like I found the key, so tell Jane not to worry, I’ll put it right back where I found it.”

“_Luisa, you did not just break into our house._”

“No, of course not, I found the spare key.” Luisa lifted the box full of toys and carried them inside, shutting the door behind her by knocking it back into place with her butt. “Is there somewhere you want me to put Mateo’s toys, or do you want me to just leave them inside the door?”

“His bedroom’s the third one down the hall. You can put them there.”

“Great. Got it.” There wasn’t much sound as her feet shuffled down the carpeted surface – bad decisions, but most of the rest of the house appeared to have hardwood, if she could just get to it – and then the sound shifted to the tap tap tap of shoe on wood, which was a much better feeling. Door one, door two, door—

“Why are you in such a hurry? Do you have somewhere to be?”

Luisa sighed, pushing open the door to Mateo’s room. “I don’t want to wait an hour outside while it’s this hot. I was a doctor, Raf. Heat stroke is not something I want to live through if I don’t have to.” She’d already lived through a lot of _other_ things she never thought she would – most of which she’d rather hadn’t happened – so heat stroke—

“Why don’t you just come back tomorrow? We can have dinner. Mateo already misses you.”

Luisa stopped just inside Mateo’s room, placing the box down on the floor next to his other toys. His bed wasn’t remotely made, the comforter covered with what looked like those little pokemon characters that Rafael had been so excited for when they first came out. There were little toys all over the floor – the legos, at least, were all clumped together in one spot so that she didn’t have to worry about stepping on them – but there was a transformer half changed in the middle of the floor, as though he’d been taken in the middle of playing with it and had forgotten to take it with him.

And, of course, there were pictures across one wall. She moved towards them.

“I’m going to be out of town for a little bit,” Luisa said around the tightening in her chest. “An old friend asked me to come stay with her. She wants me to meet her girlfriend. It should be a nice time.”

“Oh.” Rafael paused. “How long are you going to be gone? We can set something up for when you get back.”

Luisa ran her fingertips along the edges of the picture frames. Jane, Raf, the two of them together, the two of them with Mateo – those were to be expected, of course. Then those of Jane’s family – her parents, Rogelio and Xiomara; her grandmother, Alba, who had seemed so nice; and there was even one of Jorge. Interspersed were pictures of Petra, the twins, JR.

None of her.

<strike>None of _her_.</strike>

“It might be a while. I got a job offer, and I think I might take it.” Luisa shuffled her feet, crossed her arms just under her chest, and lowered her head. None of this could be seen over the phone, though. “I was going to look into it while I visited my friend. She said I could stay with her until I made my decision and that she could put me up while I was there.”

“Uh-huh.” Another pause. “And who is this friend of yours?”

_ <strike>Not Rose, Raf. You and I both know she’s dead.</strike> _ <strike></strike>

Her throat tightened. “You remember my old therapist, Dr. Bloom?” Her hands tightened about her waist, and she could imagine Raf’s face growing stony.

“Yes,” he said, his voice strained. “I remember her.”

He’d never really liked her, although Luisa’d never figured out why.

“She invited me.” Luisa took a deep breath and moved out of Mateo’s room, eyes following the pictures hanging on the walls, decorating the bookshelves. Still none of her. “She’s actually the one who found me the job.” She sighed, brushing one hand through her long hair. She hadn’t had the heart to straighten it. “I think it would be nice to get out of Miami for a while.”

“You don’t have to go.”

“I know. But I’m not really doing anything here, either.”

“You help with Mateo.”

Luisa shook her head. “Only because there was no one else. Jane still doesn’t like me. I think…it’d be better to have the time away. Just for a little bit. For my mental health.”

It didn’t matter whether that was true or not. Rafael would at least respect it. There was silence on the other end, long enough for Luisa to make her way out of Rafael and Jane’s house and lock the door behind her. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

“You just got back.”

“You don’t need me here.”

It’s a quiet admittance. Luisa almost smiled.

_“I’m here.”_

“I’m going to go, Raf. Okay?”

“Yeah.” Another pause, then, finally, “Be safe.”

“Hey, I dated a crime lord. I’ll be fine.”

Luisa hung up after that before she kept on down that path. She shouldn’t have brought her up. But now that there were cracks appearing in the not-so-carefully crafted wall she’d been using to keep herself from even thinking about it, things were starting to filter through. A little bit at a time, she could deal with. Maybe. But all of it all at once, like it had hit her back at her apartment just before Alana called—

She wasn’t sure she could handle that again right now. Not without having someone else there. Someone close. Someone who wouldn’t judge her for feeling that way.

_Like Susanna, like the last time Rose had died._

The car door slammed shut behind her, and Luisa turned the music on, cranked it up, loud and fast so that her mind didn’t have time to think about anything else. Then she plugged the address Alana had given her to her new residence into her GPS and started on her way.

The leather journal – the one she didn’t want to open again unless she absolutely had to – was locked inside of her car’s glove compartment.

Just in case.


	3. Chapter 3

_Luisa,_

_I hate journaling, and I hate writing all of this down, but inevitably your asshole younger brother is going to get one or both of us caught or killed or _something_, so I’m writing it down. One of us will want to remember. _I’ll_ want to remember. But I’m not writing this for me. I’ll remember. I don’t know if you’ll want to._

_We were in Paris today. You’re probably wondering where you are. You’re asleep. Right here. With me. You sleep like the dead, Lu, and trust me, I would know. I think…I think you’re snoring. You probably won’t believe that, though. I’m not sure _I_ believe it. You’re so quiet. It’s all that cheese and—_

_You promised me you were going to try vegetarian but that you weren’t going to go vegan and you decided today that maybe you would try vegan starting tomorrow and that is the worst possible decision you could have made while we are in FRANCE but you said if you could be vegan here then you could be vegan anywhere, and I know, _I know_, you’re not great at resisting temptation – talking about myself here, not about drinking, because you’re actually great at it with that when you’ve got someone on your side, and I’m on your side – I’m **always** on your side, even now – but this is honestly one of the worst decisions you’ve ever made._

_Unless you’ve made another bad decision since then. One that I don’t know about right now._

_If you’re reading this, one of us has made one._

_…or I’m suffering the consequences of one I made a long time ago and didn’t think would catch up with me. Still could be talking about Rafael here. You never know until you do._

_Paris is beautiful this time of year. We bought baguettes from a corner store by our apartment and put honey on them as we walked down the streets. We walked past the Eiffel Tower after dark and you loved the way the lights shimmered on the wet streets. Oh, yeah, it rained. I forgot to mention that it rained. We hid in an alley and made love in the rain and you were tired but happy. I think it made the tower a little bit better. It’s really old and we’ve been by it a lot._

_I don’t think it’s your favorite part of the city, though. You won’t tell me what your favorite is. I haven’t guessed yet. I think it’s being with me – that sounds sappy and arrogant, but you’re sappy and I’m arrogant – but I haven’t said that. I’m certain I’ll be wrong. I hate being wrong. So I haven’t guessed._

_Did you ever tell me? Was I right? I must have been. Of course I was._

_You look beautiful when you sleep. Not in a creepy Twilight sort of way. But you like that book. So maybe in a creepy Twilight sort of way. I miss you when you aren’t here._

_Luisa, I know I didn’t say it enough, but I really do love—_


End file.
